


Run Paul Run

by corporatesin



Category: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Multi, Multiple Timelines, Run Lola Run, Time Travel, inspired by Til Death Do Us Blart, sorry that i keep committing crimes on this website
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-07 22:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14680599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corporatesin/pseuds/corporatesin
Summary: Paul Blart wakes up day after day since his invitation to the Security Convention, reliving the same week in Las Vegas over and over. After the first event ending in a catastrophe, he has the rare opportunity to fix his mistakes. But can he fix the future?Takes place in an alternate branching set of timelines from Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.





	1. Save The Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings will be posted at the beginning of every chapter. 
> 
> content warning: guns / being held at gunpoint, bodily harm (not caused by guns)

Paul Blart is a proud man. He takes pride in his work, meticulous to the last detail. He provides for his family, cruelly whittled down to himself and his daughter. He would do anything for Maya. Anything in the world.

That's why he's pleading now to God and the sharply dressed man in front of him. He feels barely recognizable in some small corner of his mind watching this play out from above. Paul's face is ugly and puffy. Snot, tears, and who knows what else leaking is from his face. He is doubled over on the ground, his reservoir of tools knocked aside by the hotel staff towering over him.

The man before him holds Maya close, using her as a shield. A gun is pointed towards her, held like a king declaring his divine rule with his scepter. At any time, he could decree an execution.

"Pathetic. You came waltzing in with a taserand a _segway_ with some half-baked plan. What was that speech again? You were all kinds of crazy, you could kill me with the fork in your back pocket?" The man nodded to the men beside Paul. One of them- a bald, stocky man- kicks him in the side. The wind is knocked out of him and all he can see is the floor dissolving into flashes of darkness.

"Just let her go, do what ever you want with me," Paul wheezes. The part of him watching from above feels disgusted at the display of absolute powerlessness.

"What could I ever want with a mall cop? We've already had one little complication tonight. I doubt two more would ruin things. Especially not a little girl and her nobody father." Paul can hear Maya begin to hyperventilate and his heart sinks into the earth.

"I-I can help! I know the layout of the hotel, I know the head of the staff. I know how to get around the security-" The man straightens the pistol in his hand and aligns it closer to Maya.

Suddenly Paul's mouth is in overtime, spilling everything he knows. Everything he's ever known about security comes tumbling out, betraying everything he's ever stood for. He can't stop, not even if God reached down and handed him a way out. He talks about guns, he talks about alarms, he talks about bypassing camera feeds. The man waits patiently as Paul's life spills out, rambling about metal detectors, security procedure, and things that the police would never know or could cover. 

At the end, the man fiendishly smiles. Two different colored eyes bore into Paul's own. He has a feeling he handed the devil his eternal soul on a silver platter. At this point, Paul only feels saved.

"Well. Maybe we can work something out after all." The man doesn't lower the gun, but turns his attention to the staff above Paul.

"Take her to the helipad. We have some things to wrap up with our newest recruit first." The two men take Maya, practically hoisting her out of the room. It's only the two of them now, and the part of Paul watching them alone already knows what's going to happen. The sharply dressed man cradles the gun in his hands as though it was the only thing he ever truly loved.

"So... Paul, was it? Let's talk about your retirement package."

\---

Paul gasps for breath, sucking in the now familiar cold air of the night. He's back in bed at home, clothes laid out on the foot of his bed. Suitcases haphazardly crowd the door, ready for their flight in five hours.

Paul is home again, the horrors of the past last month now washed away into nothingness. Only he remembers what the following fall would be like, held under Vincent's thumb. None of his friends would remember being betrayed. No innocent people would die. Maya would never know how she was always a hostage, always dangling in front of Paul's objections of Vincent's command. He rolls over on his side, feeling the adrenaline high of the final heist subside into exhaustion.

He fucked up this time. He made the wrong choices somehow, a fatal misstep in his calculated plan. He had promised it wouldn't be like this again ever since the first occurrence. Of course, that was a long time ago.

Paul promises himself that this will be the last time.


	2. Exit Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place right after the lunch scene with Maya and Lain doing the "zip" bit and Divina presenting Paul the hotel key.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: allusions to a heart attack / death

"We're going home, Maya." Paul has kept their luggage bags packed, piling them on the folded out cot. He even changed his outfit- a humiliating reminder of this time spent looking forward to the convention. It's a more toned down Aloha shirt, dark blue and patterned with festive sailboats. It's the most serious shirt he packed. He's starting to regret it.

"What are you talking about? We just got here." Maya's voice is heavy with disbelief, stepping tentatively into the room. The sun is radiant, washing the hotel room in warmth. Las Vegas sprawls out before the hotel's large windows, the city alive and pulsing with tourists just like them soaking up the sunshine.

"Maya, we had one rule on this trip. What was it?" 

"Don't treat me like a child, I'm-"

"Maya." He rests an arm on the pile of luggage, resting his weight behind it. The pile of luggage crumbles under him easily, spilling out onto the floor. Paul instead spills over into the cot. The sudden force also knocks over the cot, and the two become intertwined as they hit the floor. A quiet, ashamed part of Paul is aware that if he saw a fat man like himself falling in such a clumsy fashion, he would have laughed. Maya gasps, springing into action to help hoist her father off the floor. He considers brushing her off. He's still angry- well, more afraid than angry. Maya doesn't know- this time she's safe and its still early enough that all of this can be prevented. 

"Dad, are you okay?" she asks when he's finally steady on his feet. 

"I'm fine, honey, I'm fine," Paul says, lying through his teeth. Maya begins gathering up the luggage and bags from the floor. He rolls the cot back up into its upright position. She lays the luggage on the bed this time, neat and orderly as though they were children waiting for their name to be called. Paul takes a moment to consider if he's going to go through with this. She barely even knows Lane at this point. He's only a nice valet to her so far. He doesn't even know if Maya even  _likes_ him now or if that happens just before the party.

Paul takes a deep breath.

"It... turns out you got accepted to UCLA! A full ride and everything! They just called me earlier and I wanted to surprise you- but we've got to get on this fast. Apparently the wait time to secure classes and your dorm sitch sorted out is really short. We've got to head back home immediately!" He watches as Maya's face changes from confusion to joy, and from joy to concern.

"Are you sure? We've got to go right now? What about the convention- you worked hard for this." 

"Honey, the convention happens every year. If they don't invite me next year, we can take a vacation anyway! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for  _you._ " He makes the biggest smile he can muster, and pulls his daughter into his arms. Maya is embracing him, squeezing as tightly as she can. Paul can feel her calming heartbeat. Though everything is going wrong in Paul Blart's now seemingly immortal life right now, this is what keeps him grounded. 

"I'm... I'm so happy," she says, stifling the nervousness perched in her throat.  "I thought you'd be upset about me leaving, since-"

"Oh sure, just a little. But knowing my little girl is going out there and chasing her dreams, well, that's enough for me." A Paul from before all of this would have been upset. A Paul from before all this would have done everything to keep her at home. Of course, a Paul from before all this would never know the horrors of the realities he couldn't protect her.

There's a knock at the door, and Lane lets himself in. He seems sheepish, a wadded paper ticket in his hands. 

"I... you forgot this," Lane says, watching as the two Blarts break away from each other. Maya takes a step towards the door, but Paul for once is quicker. He takes two big strides until he's in front of Lane. Every part of him hates this teenage boy, who in every way has inexplicably kept dragging Maya into trouble. Not today, Lane. Not today.

"Thanks, kid. We won't be needing this though." Paul grabs the ticket and crumples it into a tighter ball, tossing it wildly in the general direction of the room's trashcan. On a second thought, his sense of honor grabs a hold of him. He reaches into his pocket and places a worn ten dollar bill into the valet's hands. Lane starts to say something to Maya, but Paul closes the door on him. 

"Well, enough of that," Paul says hastily. "Maya, call the front desk, would you? We're gonna need some help getting this all downstairs."

\---

Lane finds himself alone in a corner at the party, close to a hundred other teenagers are partying around him. It's the same as always when he's invited to these things. He checks his phone for the millionth time, and his Twitter feed has barely moved. He's itching for any excuse to get out of here for a moment- maybe if he can compose himself, he can work up the ability to have fun. Too bad the girl he met earlier had to leave so soon. She was lovely, charming- refreshing in ways Lane couldn't even begin to describe. He likes to think she wouldn't have left him stranded by himself at this party, unlike the other teenage valets at this hotel he called 'friends.'

He manages to slink away, just barely, from the men in suits. Lane tucks him into the storage room of the hall, scanning There's only one other number in his phone that isn't family. He quickly dials it, and when Divina picks up, he begins speaking as fast as he can. It's clipped and stuttered, and he keeps hearing Divina ask him to slow down. There is a knocking at the door, so he speaks faster.

Divina hears Lane shout at the same time a door slams open into the wall, and the line goes silent. She calls Eduardo, trying to put what little she could understand together.

\---

A couple days later, when he's reading the newspaper in his favorite chair at home, a headline about Las Vegas startles Paul Blart enough to make his heart stop. 

"What's wrong, dad?" is the last thing he hears before he wakes up again on the worst night of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi and thanks for reading!! wow we sure did a lot today, huh?
> 
> one of my extremely good friends, the enigmatic and endless fountain of creation, Mr. Mind has made a [song](https://instaud.io/2c5m) as part of an arts trade and i will treasure it forever. thanks for time eternal, my dude!
> 
> you can see the rest of his extremely powerful and wonderful work here on [bandcamp!](https://icantbelievemymind.bandcamp.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank the boys at Til Death Do Us Blart for all their hard work, and my friends who keep letting me do dumb shit like this. 
> 
> Why _do_ you keep letting me do this?
> 
> Also in this house we acknowledge and apprectiate that there is no such thing as a true or correct timeline.


End file.
